This invention relates to setting a microphone volume level.
Many speech recognition systems include sound cards having a fixed microphone volume level. Other sound cards have a variable microphone volume level. Typically, when a speech recognition system including a sound card having a variable volume level is loaded onto a host computer for the first time, the volume level is pre-set to a default level corresponding to average environmental conditions. Environmental conditions include background noise, microphone-type, sound card-type, and the user's voice.
If the environmental conditions are not average (e.g., the background noise is high and/or the user's voice is very high or low), the default volume level may prevent the microphone from effectively detecting the user's speech. In some cases, this may increase speech recognition errors, while in other more extreme cases, the speech recognition system may not be able to recognize any of the user's speech. In the extreme cases, the system does not respond when the user speaks. It may be difficult for the user to determine that a volume adjustment is necessary to render the system operational, and often, the user is not able to change the volume setting.